"Are the Dead Alive Now" was plagiarized.

[Rocky]

quote:Even if you found a way to express Staffen's idea without using any of her original words, that would still constitute plagiarism. Sorry. If you're going to use someone else's words and/or ideas, you have to give them due credit.

Mr. Babbie

And so according to Mr. Babbie, VPW then plagiarized everything because he used others ideas and didn't give proper written acknowledgement.

And I still say, so what?

Because even had Wierwille given proper written acknowledgement in all his books, would that have caused any of us to do anything any different way back when?

Would we have flocked to other ministries?

Flocked to other causes?

Would we have given less money to twi?

Not taken PFAL, not gone WOW, not gone Corps.

Gotten less committed because we saw proper written acknowledgement in the books?

I trow not.

But now that some want to prove that VPW was a monster, this adds to their repertoire of condemnation.

Well, congratulations!

And I still say, so what?

Given that ALL of the intent of VPee's "teaching" was to establish HIMSELF as MOGFOT, and that the plagiarism directly subverts that concept, YES, anyone with even half a brain would have been able to rethink their life decisions

[waysider]

A large part of the appeal of Wierwille's message was that it was unique, proprietary, hadn't been known since dinosaurs learned to slice bread. So, yeah, had we known then that it was all rehashed, diced and sliced works of others of whom we had no interest, I do think it would have swayed our acceptance.

[WordWolf]

A large part of the appeal of Wierwille's message was that it was unique, proprietary, hadn't been known since dinosaurs learned to slice bread. So, yeah, had we known then that it was all rehashed, diced and sliced works of others of whom we had no interest, I do think it would have swayed our acceptance.

It was part of the whole package.

We were sold the whole package.

That package was of a religious organization that was unique in that its authority and teaching

were solely from the Bible, and whose understanding of the Bible and God Almighty was unique

among organizations, and uniquely accurate, because only its founder refused to consult

with people, only with God Almighty. So, the whole organization was special, and involvement

was predicated upon all that.

If we'd known from the beginning that the teachings were an eclectic assembly of different

Christian writers and teachers rather than taught by God Almighty, and that the founder got

ALL of his content from others rather than NONE of his content,

we certainly would have approached the group differently. It certainly would have been more

worthy of respect-if they'd told us the truth from Day One rather than lies from Day One.

There's no reason to question this- if it was just another group, albeit an excellent one,

it could warrant a certain amount of respect. If it was THE Group, with THE Truth

(which is what we were taught),

that's another thing altogether- and twi's retention is still largely based on that to this

day just as it was when we were involved.